Primary Care Nurse Practitioner

Nurse practitioners, or NPs, are registered nurses with master’s degree training that prepares them to perform many day-to-day health care services that physicians have traditionally performed. In many states, NPs can work independently, without a physician's supervision.

In NHSC-served areas, where health professionals are hard to come by, it is common for NPs to run the show, taking the lead in the gamut of medical services—from performing and interpreting laboratory tests to prescribing medications to advocating in health matters.

Yovan Gonzalez, FNP
′Health Ship′ Has Come In, But Dedicated Provider Stays His Course

The Floating Hospital, where Yovan Gonzalez has devoted himself for the last 5 years, started 130 years ago as just that—a "ship of health" with which health professionals charted a course providing health care to those in need in its New York City community. In the hundred plus years since the nonprofit facility was established to provide health care to the newsboys of The New York Times, The Floating Hospital's mission has remained the same—providing quality health care to those most in need.What has changed, however, is that in the fall of 2003, the ship's services were moved ashore, where more than 20 satellite Floating Hospital clinics were already scattered around the boroughs of Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn.

It's at a Brooklyn-based clinic that Gonzalez, a family nurse practitioner (FNP), has set anchor. Though he has fulfilled his 2-year commitment under the NHSC’s Loan Repayment Program, Gonzalez has no plans to leave The Floating Hospital.

Gonzalez has thrown himself into launching a model asthma program at his clinic, which he hopes will be replicated in other shelters throughout New York City. To reach as many people as possible, as efficiently as possible, he has nurtured partnerships with other city organizations with an interest in asthma care, including the New York City Asthma Initiative and the American Lung Association.

We asked Gonzalez about the NHSC:

What difference has the NHSC made in your community?
The reason I do what I do is that I feel I'm helping the homeless community here every single day. The other NHSC clinicians and I are part of a team of health care professionals serving a New York City community that includes many homeless families.We bring an added element of culturally competent service to our patients, many of whom are African-American and Hispanic. For my part, a lot of people say, "Yeah, I'm bilingual." But it helps that I come from a Latin background—many of my 600 or so patients have a similar cultural background, and so they seem to listen to my advice a little bit more.

The Floating Hospital's patients—many of whom can't even read or write, and have never been taught about even basic hygiene—are grateful that we're here so that they have someone to speak with them in Spanish and to understand what they're going through.

What difference has the NHSC made in your professional life?
The NHSC has allowed me to do what I like to do—work for a nonprofit—whereas otherwise, I would have been so financially strained that at some point I would have had to look for a job that paid more. The NHSC helped me reach a point of opportunity to go to the World Asthma Conference and a lot of professional meetings on allergy and asthma, and to pursue my passion for helping people with the chronic, serious problem of asthma.